Friday, May 2, 2014

News Headlines (499) 1 May - 2 May 2014

ONLINE TODAY

► An argument flares up between you and a friend or colleague -- and it needs to run its course. That doesn't mean pursuing your opponent if they back down, just that closure is a must. Today might leave you wondering why you didn't decide to invest in breath mints sooner. It just doesn't matter who you're with or what you're talking about -- you've got an awful lot to say, and most of it goes beyond merely entertaining to actually encourage others. Everyone who loves you -- and even some who don't yet -- sits and listens with nothing more in mind than enjoying the ride.

► PEOPLE & BLOG : WARNING: WE ARE ON THE VERGE OF NUCLEAR WW3 (RUSSIA DECLARE WAR ON UKRAINE, OBAMA DECEPTION). Published on Mar 3, 2014 by Seho Song

► SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY : BBC Space Documentary - We are the Aliens. Clouds of alien life forms are sweeping through outer space and infecting planets with life. The idea that life on Earth came from another planet has been around as a modern scientific theory since the 1960s when it was proposed by Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe. At the time they were ridiculed for their idea -- known as panspermia. But now, with growing evidence, it's back in vogue and even being studied by NASA. Published on Aug 15, 2013 by Space Vacationers

► ENTERTAINMENT : Scientists make breakthrough on bilharzia. A parasitic disease known as bilharzia, or schistosomiasis, has killed more than 200 million people, but scientists in northern Senegal say they have made a breakthrough in treating it.Bilharzia is carried by small snails that are invisible to the naked eye. It penetrates the skin slowly and destroys internal organs.The Diama dam, built in 1986 to protect farmland from brackish water, changed the Senegal River's ecosystem, wiped out the snail's only predator, the prawn, and allowed bilharzia to multiply and infect hundreds of thousands of villagers.Now scientists are reintroducing prawns into the ecosystem in enclosures and are seeing positive results.Bilharzia is the second most common parasitic disease in the world after malaria.Al Jazeera's Nicolas Haque reports from Lumpsar, northern Senegal. Published on Jan 23, 2014 by Al Jazeera English

► 100,000 Russians march on Red Square in patriotic fervour. Some 100,000 workers joined a May Day parade on mosMoscow's Red Square Thursday for the first time since the 1991 Soviet breakup, as the takeover of Crimea boosts President Vladimir Putin's standing amid a surge of patriotism.

► Raw: Over 7,000 Guitarists Attempt World Record. Thousands of guitarists gathered in the market square of the Polish town of Wroclaw on Thursday, and attempted to break the world record for the number of people playing simultaneously the Jimi Hendrix song "Hey Joe."

Questions:
1. Skype confirmed this week it had removed some emoji symbols which have the potential to offend. Which of these did NOT go?
2. Sicilian capital Palermo is to get a new statue of Christ. Where is it to be located?
3. British musicians protested this week about which item being restricted in prisons?
4. Drag and drop the correct word to complete this BBC News headline: No more free * for Turkmens : bread, petrol, horses
5. A dig in the New Mexico desert has unearthed an unlikely cache of what?
6. Police have warned the public about approaching escaped animals on the loose in South Wales. What are they?
7. Which Norwegian food has won EU protected designation of origin status?

Answers :
1.It was vomiting. Both the middle finger and high-heeled legs were excised.
2. It's on the seabed. It is hoped the statue will attract divers and thus boost tourism.
3. It was steel-string guitars. The restrictions came as part of the government's incentives to prisoners to engage in rehabilitation.
4. It was petrol. There had been a free allowance since 2008 but it is now being scrapped.
5. It was games for video games console Atari 2600. Much of the dumped stock was copies of a game based on ET and legendary for its awfulness.
6. It was wild boars. More than 40 of the animals were on the loose after a burglary at a farm.
7. It's the air-dried cod or torrfisk fra lofoten. It joins the likes of Parma ham and champagne in being recognised.

■ Locals of east Ukraine cities quit jobs, join protest for greater autonomy. Local administration building, prosecutors office and police headquarters of Ukraine's eastern city of Lugansk have been taken over. Protesters are demanding an amnesty for political prisoners and a referendum on self-determination. RT's Paula Slier met those occupying the administration building in Donetsk, the hub of the pro-autonomy protests.

■ Scoring Political Points? NATO bolsters forces in Eastern Europe. Washington repeated its lament for NATO members to boost defense spending. The call has been given greater impetus because the Alliance is stepping up its defense capabilities in Central and Eastern Europe. NATO has sent over 60 more jets to the region. It's also expected to triple its air missions in the Baltic starting next month. Independent researcher and writer Soraya Sepahpour Ulrich believes this is about political points scoring.

■ RT criticized again by US State Dept. for 'false claims' & 'selective editing'. RT has fallen under the criticism of the State Department yet again; accusing the news agency of propagandizing the reports from Ukraine.

■ Tear gas, water cannon as May Day protesters clash with police in Istanbul. Riot Police in Istanbul used tear gas and water cannon to break up crowds of protesters during May Day demonstrations. The authorities have blocked off Istanbul's iconic Taksim Square. RT's Sara Firth reports.

► Lifelines: River of Hope. River Of Hope profiles the work underway in the Senegal Basin to combat the deadly disease schistosomiasis, also known as bilharzia. The approach is novel and the results impressive.

CZ

"Thank you for your perception! I like your romantic side, even if I do not always comment and I'm glad that you're in my circle of friends."(Courtesies by: Wolfgang A. Gerhardt)

Wolfgang A.Gerhardt : May be you like this Sunday collage

Cisca Zarmansyah : Before today, there never was a person doing this to me. You create a simple matter to look special. This is a special thing for me.

Cisca Zarmansyah : Thank you. I love it. I love you, my friend. ♥

CieL- FreYa Ceastle : Hmm, he's so nice...

"I am me.
In all the world,
there is no one else exactly like me.
Everything that comes out of me
is authentically mine,
because I alone chose it --
I own everything about me:
my body,
my feelings,
my mouth,
my voice,
all my actions,
whether they be to others or myself.
I own my fantasies,
my dreams,
my hopes,
my fears.
I own my triumphs and successes,
all my failures and mistakes.
Because I own all of me,
I can become intimately acquainted with me.
By so doing,
I can love me
and be friendly with all my parts.
I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me,
and other aspects that I do not know
-- but as long as I am friendly
and loving to myself,
I can courageously and hopefully
look for solutions
to the puzzles and ways
to find out more about me.
However I look and sound,
whatever I say and do,
and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time
is authentically me.
If later some parts of how I looked,
sounded,
thought,
and felt
turn out to be unfitting,
I can discard that which is unfitting,
keep the rest,
and invent something new
for that which I discarded.
I can see,
hear,
feel,
think,
say, and do.
I have the tools to survive,
to be close to others,
to be productive,
and to make sense
and order out of the world of people
and things outside of me.
I own me,
and therefore,
I can engineer me.
I am me,
and I am okay."

VIRGINIA SATIR
(American Phychologist and Educator, 1916-1988)

About Me

"When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent. I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent. I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out. I was not a trade unionist. When they came for the Jews, I remained silent. I wasn't a Jew. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out." - Martin Niemöller